Chapter Three

Name Of The Game

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A/N: Thank you all for such wonderful feedback! It always puts a smile on my face and continues to blow me away! I hope I'll manage to live up to the great reviews, so I'll leave you with this chapter and cross my fingers :) You all rock!

Happy New Year!


The mid-afternoon hours heralded the impending storm by permitting a few gusty breezes to sweep through the otherwise calm city, letting all and sundry have a undersized sample of the furious wrath that was soon to be unleashed. The dark gray, roiling clouds did nothing but warrant the winds, sneering down pitilessly as if to say, 'Just you wait...this is nothing'.

Bosco and Ty, however, were oblivious to the threatening horizon, and were instead filling the RMP with good-humored prattle and jousting. The loud squeal of tires and the roar of a thundering engine abruptly interrupted their conversation, which had quickly turned into a who's-got-more-game competition.

Before either officer had the time to react to the unanticipated clamor, a black, late-model Subaru hurtled by the RMP, shaking it and the passengers inside noticeably from sheer speed.

"Son-of-a-bitch!" Bosco exclaimed and slammed both palms against the steering wheel in a flagrant show of infuriation. As usual, he wasted no time at all, quickly shifting out of the parking space that they occupied and flooring the accelerator down in an attempt to pursue the speeding vehicle.

"Damn..." Ty murmured, snapping on his seatbelt -- a prudent preparation for the imminent chase-down-- and flicking on the lights and sirens as they sped down the street, his widened eyes glued to the racing car ahead.

Two blocks down the street, they finally caught up and Bosco proceeded to tail the car, deliberately matching its speed. Averting his eyes from the soon-to-be owner of one of the largest tickets he'd written thus far, he glanced at the speedometer and whistled in amazement at the readout. "Goin' 70 in a 45 zone! Not too smart, jag-off!"

Pre-empting his partner's subsequent move, Ty grabbed the bullhorn mike and spoke into it coolly, "Pull over to the right. Now."

The car slowed, as if the reckless driver hadn't realized that the police car had been flashing its lights and sirens for him to pull over the whole time, and then hauled off to the right into a nearby alleyway, slamming on the breaks in an evident demonstration of exasperation.

The RMP pulled in right behind, Bosco still shaking his head in disbelief. "This guy... I swear, what an idiot."

Ty nodded his approval of the brusque heckle as he unfastened his seatbelt, "Yeah, I hear ya."

Grabbing the necessary ticket book and then taking a moment to bundle up again, the two officers exited their vehicle and strode up to the car. Using his curved index finger, Ty rapped on the hideously tinted driver's side window, an unspoken order to roll it down immediately.

The dark glass pane receded smoothly into the door, revealing the driver and surprising the officers slightly as the youthful face of what appeared to be a late teen came into view. After a quick glance into the rear of the car, it was apparent that the backseats were full of teenagers as well, all finding the situation very droll for some odd reason.

"What the hell was that?" Bosco hissed at the reckless driver, slamming his fist against the doorframe. "You know how fast you were going?"

"Sorry, Officer," the boy shrugged semi-apologetically, "I was just having a little fun with my friends, didn't realize I was speeding... You know how it is..." The young kid gave Bosco a knowing look, a dim-witted and immature attempt to persuade the officer to empathize and side with him, and perhaps degrade the ticket down to a mere warning.

But by the way that Bosco suddenly clenched his fists angrily, Ty could tell that his cohort wasn't happy with the puerile lack of respect at all, and he watched very interestedly as his friend leaned in and lowered his voice until he was virtually growling.

"When I was your age, punk," Bosco snarled, nearly gritting his teeth, "I was in the reserves. I 'joyrided' on a tank. But I guess if you count the ten sergeants screaming obscenities in my face as my 'friends'...then yes, I do know how it is."

Not expecting the sudden mocking antagonism, the boy's mouth fell open in shock. But he quickly recovered, his eyes flashing piercingly into anger when he realized that the officer wasn't about to let him go with just a warning.

"You have some sort of quota you have to fill?" he snapped crossly, scowling back in utter defiance. A few muffled titters erupted from the backseat as the rest of his posse found his cheeky irreverence hilarious.

"Quota?" Bosco huffed, turning to Ty with an ambiguous expression fixed on his face, his eyes glinting mischievously, betraying the peeved scowl that warped his mouth. "Do we have quotas anymore, Davis?"

Ty readily took the opportunity to openly scorn the blatant immaturity of the young kid, and leaned in as well, shaking his head.

"Nah, we don't have quotas anymore," he stated as seriously as he could manage, struggling to remain stern and staid. "We used to have quotas, but now we're allowed to write as many tickets as we want."

"Damn straight," Bosco nodded in agreement, fishing out his ticket book and pen. "Now where were we? Oh, yeah. License and registration...NOW."


"55-Charlie, report to a theft at 2514 Princeton," the radio sputtered noisily, much to Sully's dismay. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and sighed, relegating the next hour to another perfect example of just why he should retire.

"Can I call us in?" Gusler wanted to know as he grabbed his shoulder radio tentatively, a questioning look smothering out the curiosity and awe that had dominated his features for the majority of the day.

Sully --bored, annoyed, and apathetically stolid-- merely shrugged his consent. "Sure...why not," he retorted dryly, his tone a fusion of triteness and sarcasm.

Gusler's whole demeanor brightened at the permission, excited to use the airways like a 'real' cop. "Central, this is mobile unit Fifty-Five-Charlie. We will be responding to the theft report at 2514 Princeton immediately..." he articulated slowly, sounding as though he thought that the dispatcher was a bit on the slow side. And then as an afterthought, "Uh, 10-4."

"You'd do better to say less, kid," Sully riposted matter-of-factly. "Wastes oxygen."

"Oh."

The radio crackled again, this time bedecked with the mocking guffaw of the amused dispatcher. "Oh, thank you ever so much, 55-Charlie - I will immediately show you as en route to that call... It has been a pleasure doing business with you," he drawled at an even slower rate, poking fun at Gusler's more-then-polite call-in.

"Knock it off, Larry -- I got fresh meat today," Sully sourly warned. "Give me a break."

"Ahhh, fresh meat..." chuckled the radio knowingly. "Have fun with the Hotdog!"

Disgruntled by the flagrant delight from the dispatcher --who was fortunate to be working in a heated room and very well might have had his feet propped lazily up on his desk-- Sully scowled and rolled his eyes.

"Hotdog?" Gusler asked, obviously confused by the lingo that he had not yet grown accustomed to. Regrettably, at the Police Academy there was no class teaching the standard jargon and slang terms that peppered the street cop's language throughout the day, and the 'fresh meat' often had a difficult time adjusting. Consequently, this difficulty only provided yet another reason to voice further questions.

By this point, though, Sully felt as though he had been officially interrogated by the Gestapo and had little or no tolerance for another grilling.

God help me, the seasoned officer silently begged. Patience...patience...

Taking a deep breath, he thought of Tatiana -- her soft gray-green eyes, bright smile, and her enchanting exotic accent-- and this eased his exasperation to some extent. Only a few more hours of the expected, routine monotony and he would be back with her.

Forcing a more polite attitude and a half-smile, he turned to the young kid. "Another name for rookie," he explained. "Hotdog, Cherries, Gopher, Young Warrior, Fresh Meat... You'll probably be called them all before the week's out."

"Man..." Gusler breathed quietly as his face twisted into a disenchanted frown.

Sully had to chuckle at the kid's obvious dismay, then winked good-naturedly and added as an addendum, "Or the technical classification: Wide Eyedicus Bushy Tailicus."


"55-David, respond to a disturbance of peace at the south end of the park on Arthur."

"God...who the hell is out disturbing my city today?" Bosco hissed, scowling in an overstated show of his annoyance and distain.

The wind was unquestionably picking up outside the cruiser, angrily blowing and buffering the vehicle as he drove it. Sleet had masked the ground and buildings with a thin rime, sparkling brightly in the rare sighting of the afternoon sun. It was obvious that the weather was on the brink of turning south, with the wind indicating the severity soon to come.

If Bosco had a choice, he would be inside, and had no idea what possessed people to wander outside in the first place, and then have the gall to commit a crime. They were all bastards, as far as he was concerned.

"I guess we'll find out, huh..." Ty shrugged indifferently as he picked up the CB to respond. "South-end park, 55-David, 10-4."


Their footsteps echoed loudly off of the derelict, flaking walls, providing an eerie pounding and cave-like feeling to the two that shuffled down what seemed to have once been a decent, hardwood hallway. Mold, dirt, and trash littered the grime-caked floors now, dusting the lost wood with filth and neglect.

Sully lead the way, his expression yielding nothing except the typical facetious, yet charming, ennui that was his preferred facade. Emotion on the job could only get one in trouble - therefore, he suppressed his, and resorted to sarcasm and irony to fill the void. It was strange, yes, but it worked for him. Everyone had their own place, their own ways to cope - Ty had his legalistic sense of justice; Bosco, his fervor and hot-headedness; Faith, her consideration and empathy. That was how it was, and it was comfortable.

Unfortunately, Gusler had no knowledge of the twisted quirks that decorated the 55th with colorful flavor, and the young man was floundering his first day, noticeably trying desperately to fit in somehow. He trotted after Sully, eyes ever widened, his mind whiling with doubts and questions, but his gut forcing him to keep the majority of it to himself.

Sighing heavily, Sully stopped before the mangled, marred door in question, but hesitated slightly, as if he were not anticipating the impending words and gratuitous nattering that would surely follow the announcement of their arrival.

"Police," he declared nonchalantly while knocking on the peeling brown wood.

Raring to go, Gusler shifted his weight back and forth, eager and anxious to resolve their latest 'crisis'.

The door cracked ajar a smidgen, and a severely obese woman squinted out at them from poke-hole eyes, her pale skin greasy from disregard and her hair a matted chaos of reddish frizz. Upon recognizing the officials that graced her entrance, she opened the door about halfway, her heavy, fat jowls joggling with her head as she nodded in satisfaction.

"Good, it's about time you got here," she muttered, her slightly parted lips revealing an accumulation of crooked yellow teeth. "Now you can arrest their sorry hides..."

"We got a call about a robbery, ma'am," Gusler started, politeness fortifying his voice like dripping honey. Sully nearly rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, that's right," she confirmed, bobbing her head again and sending her chins into a tidal wave of jiggling motion. "Someone stole my dog."

"Your dog?" Sully hissed, incredulous about the significance of the call. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back slightly, his body language clearly stating 'here we go again -- let's hear it'.

"Yeah, those damn chinks downstairs stole 'um and ate 'um. I know they done it when my Bugsy didn't come home las' night."

Amused to some extent by her blatant racial prejudice, Sully raised his brow and suppressed a smirk. It never failed to amaze him how some people were so ill-bred and ignorant -- Big Bertha being no exception.

"Ma'am, I seriously doubt anyone ate the dog. Did you see them take it?" Sully sought to know, annoyance lacing his tone as he was still disbelieving that they had actually been summoned to a 'dog-napping'. He'd figured that he'd seen just about everything in his twenty plus years on the job, but this had to be a new one.

"No, but I smelt somethin' a cookin'... You know them Chinese, they eats animals - dogs and cats! They did it 'an you'd better arrest 'um for it!" she screeched, her voice nearly as irritating as the mere sight of her. Gusler was visibly wincing at her clamor, slinking back slightly as his face twisted into a disgusted grimace. "They took my Bugsy an' ate 'im! I know it!"

"Okay, okay...calm down, now," Sully begged to reason with the distressed shrieking. Conjuring up the best way to deal with the 'situation', he proceeded to fib his consequent mode of operation. "Well, I can't arrest them without a body or evidence, but I'll tell you what I'll do - I'll write them a ticket, okay?"

A frown creased her adipose tissue as a long line, exaggerated by the lard that had to shift significantly for the movement to occur. "Fine," her tone pouted, but her pleased sneer gave away her feigned disappointment. It was obvious that she had an ulterior motive to castigate her --more likely then not-- innocent neighbors. "Jus' so long as they pays for killin' my Bugsy."

"Shouldn--" Gusler started, his puzzled gaze darting from the blubbering mass to Sully's annoyed face as he tentatively held up the ticket book.

"They will," Sully stopped the rookie mid-word, silencing him with a long look and a slight shake of his head. He forced a polite smile to grace his features as he tried to reassure the corpulent woman. "Don't you worry about it, ma'am, okay?"

"Okay," she beamed, her bulbous cheeks pushing at her eyes until they were mere slits with lashes. "You do that... They need to pay..." she muttered under her breath as she closed the door after them.

Sully immediately started down the hall, impatient to get out of the odoriferous hellhole and away from the stench that robbed his nostrils of any contentment.

His partner's abrupt ending to the problem and successive departure confused Gusler, however, and the young kid stopped Sully with another God-forsaken question.

"Aren't we going to write a report?" he asked diffidently, unsure of how procedure was to be reached, irresolute in what his superior officer was doing about the situation.

"For what?! A 'dog-napping'?" Sully growled, anticipating this question -- amongst the others that were sure to follow. Compared to this kid, Davis' first day was a piece of cake. Sully could only hope that the rest of the day would yield nothing of any exigency or danger, for fear the rookie would panic, freeze...or worse.

"Well...you said that--"

"Look, kid," the older officer interrupted brusquely, "the dog probably wandered off last night and is a frozen 'pup-sicle' in some alley somewhere. There's no call for a report, let alone a ticket."

"So, why'd you tell her that then?"

"To get her off our ass..." Sully answered truthfully, then turned to look Gusler right in the eye, his tone abruptly serious. "If you're gonna learn one thing out here, you need to learn that its our job to solve problems, not fix the world. We can't do enough, so we do what we can."


Crumbling asphalt crunched beneath their feet as Ty and Bosco ran through the barren park, trying to stick to the worn sidewalk for additional traction. The frozen lawn yielded nothing but a slippery haven of slick ice, and neither man felt like falling flat on his backside mid-chase.

Loud shouts heralded the fistfight that corrupted the desolate basketball court at the far end and the medley of wrestling, yelling bodies that littered the pavement.

"Dammit," Bosco breathed harshly as they sprinted down the walkway. "Gang fight..."

Ty merely nodded his grim concurrence, the thick frigid air cutting into his lungs like an ice pick, harshly impending his speech. It was obvious, though, that he was as unenthusiastic as his partner regarding the situation at hand.

It was not unusual to break up two or three such fights in a week, but no cop took the call if he didn't have to. The threat of knifes, bats, shanks, and sometimes guns, had no appeal to the officials and they avoided being the responders at all costs. Unfortunately, there had been no warning as to exactly what type of disturbance that this was, and the two young cops had gotten roped into taking it.

"Dammit..." repeated an evidently upset Bosco.

The hostile, combative skirmish seemed to swell in magnitude as they drew near, and Ty found himself subconsciously counting the number of struggling men that they would have to pull apart.

Three...six...eight... Shit...

His eyes caught the glint of metal and instantly focused on a long knife gripped in the hand of a heavy-set man. The guy, oblivious to the approaching enforcement, started to lunge for another grounded man, maliciously stabbing the knife down as he went.

"KNOCK IT OFF!" bellowed Bosco, slamming into the assailant forcefully while simultaneously knocking the knife from his grasp. The irate gangster quickly recovered and swung around, swinging his fists blindly at his unseen antagonist. Bosco was quick, however, and ducked just in time, drilling his own fist into the big guy's unguarded belly. Immediately following the staggering blow, the man folded over in pain, wrapping his arms around himself protectively.

"KNOCK IT OFF! ALL OF YOU!"

Half of the tussling gangsters looked up at the officer's strident command, and then scrambled to their feet upon seeing who had so rudely interrupted their 'war'.

"Cops!" someone cried frantically, spiraling the intense confusion into a hurried chaos, and quickly turning a large portion of the fighting into slapping feet of retreat.

"Oh, no you don't!" Ty shouted as he was nearly trampled by the heard of running men, catching the arm of one of the most aggressive fighters and pulling him away from his intended flee. "Oh-ho, no! No, you stay here..."

In the meantime, Bosco had managed to procure the violent gangster that had tried to punch him, grasping the collar of the bigger man with both hands while wrenching the fabric so that there was little room left for movement.

"Wow!" he exclaimed loudly, right in the ear of his squirming detainee. "Look who it is, Davis! Our good friend from the 2-6ers..."

Ty took a second to catch his breath, bending over slightly and heaving a few heavy sighs before nodding his recognition. "Hey, Kirk - fancy meetin' you here..." he greeted the illustrious gang leader casually as he strained to keep his own perp's fighting hands pinned behind his back.

His informal greeting only served to infuriate the already struggling Kirk, and the enraged gangster quickly snapped back, "K-smoove! It's K-smoove, and don'chu fo'get it!"

"Okay, K-smooth," Bosco jeered slowly, ridiculing his rather outlandish nickname. "Get your arms behind your back - you know the drill very well, I'm sure..."

"What? You only arrestin' me? Wha' 'bout the others? You jus' gonna let them all go? I ain't the only one fightin'!"

Bosco took a long moment to pause and look around, deliberately noting the lack of any 'others' in the hastily emptied court. "Yeah...seems that way, doesn't it? See, you were stupid and tried to hit me while they all ran. So I guess I got stuck with you...or vise versa," he sniped as he clipped a pair of handcuffs on his catch. "Game over, loser."

Realizing that he was getting no leeway from his obstinate captor, Kirk twisted around until he faced Ty, and glared at him with the usual 'hey-the-white-boy-is-oppressing-me' look that often followed one of Bosco's arrests. "You gonna let him get away with this? Com'on, man, help a brotha' out..."

"Sorry," Ty shrugged, fastening a handle on his own detainee.

"It ain't fair!"

"Fair? You want me to be fair?" Bosco snapped coldly, forcefully slamming the struggling man up against the chain-link fence that was surrounding the court. "Listen, pal, fair is a place where you go to ride on rides, eat cotton candy, and step in monkey poop. This is the real word. Get used to it."

"Go to hell, Boscorelli!" Kirk snarled irately as Bosco dragged him towards the waiting RMP.

"You first."


Because the ritual three knocks didn't seem to work the first time, and the absence of a doorbell, Doc resorted to using clenched fist on the ornate cast-iron door. He lowered his head and placed his hands on his hips after a few seconds of total silence met his announcement, sighing softly at the predicted delay.

The penthouse apartment that they had been called to was dreary at best, but boasting wealth with its pricey Christmas decorations and stained-glass windows. For all the world, the apartment looked akin to something out of an old English storybook with its charming, but rather dark, curios and design. Unfortunately, it was a place that Doc and Carlos knew all-too-well --the owner being one of their few frequent-flyers-- and they were forced to patronize the residence at least once a week for various medical complaints.

A soft thump emitted from within, and Carlos shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Here we go..." he whispered to his partner, knowing exactly what would commence once they were let inside. A barrage of complaints --all dreamt up, it seemed-- would greet them, stemming from the mouth of the mature lady that called oh so regularly.

The door flew open abruptly, revealing the woman herself, her superfluous wheelchair draped with a heavy coverlet.

"Oh, thank God, you're here," she gasped, her deceivingly frail-looking hand resting against her bosom as though she were in a great deal of pain. The shrewd medics knew better, however, and causally ignored her melodramatic demonstration.

"Hi, Mrs. Arden," Doc smiled as courteously as he could manage, but Carlos didn't bother relinquishing even half as much, already becoming peeved at the mounting number of times that they had been summoned to her side in the last few weeks. "What seems to be the problem today?"

Carlos busied himself with fastening the blood-pressure cuff on her upper arm while Doc took his stethoscope and tended to her heart with an astute hand.

"Well," she started slowly, gazing warmheartedly at Doc in an apparent endeavor to win his sympathy and full concentration. It was obvious to both paramedics that she was fond of Doc, her 'hero' -- or so she called him. Laughingly, there was nothing that he'd done in past visits that would have merited this title, but he understood her loneliness and need for attention, and withstood her bemoaning and frivolous flirting long-sufferingly.

"Today I woke up from my nap with the most awful pain in my chest. It's just dreadful -- something fierce." She patted the right side of her chest indicating the proximity of the pain, and instantly dispelled the concern of a forthcoming heart attack by implying the wrong area. This only served to annoy Carlos, who was by this time, 'fed up with her shit', and he proceeded to widen his eyes and let his mouth fall open in mock horror.

"That side?" he gasped exaggeratedly, raising his brow. "Are you sure?"

Mrs. Arden nodded quickly and proceeded to act as if an intense pain suddenly enveloped her heart by letting out a moan and dramatically throwing her head back. "Oh dear, there it goes again..."

"BP 120 over 90, pulse 70," Doc mumbled offhandedly, trying to stick to business.

"Do you have pain anywhere else?" Carlos asked, simulating a worried sincerity as he laced his hands together before him.

This question pleased the 'ailing' woman greatly, and she began to rattle off a compilation of symptoms and pains that probably could never have occurred simultaneously in anyone -- save a victim of a forty-foot fall or something as equally severe.

"God, Doc," Carlos breathed as he frowned with contrived concern, "you know what that means, right?"

Now, usually Doc would have never let Carlos get away with the disingenuous ploy that he was about to pull, but he himself was also growing weary of the problematic woman's incessant calls and open flirting, and instead chose to let his young partner carry on in his sarcastic con.

"'Fraid so..." Doc nodded seriously, gathering up the bag of medical supplies.

"Is it...bad? Am I dying?" Mrs. Arden whispered, appearing deceivingly frightened, but her face illuminated like a floodlight at the dreadful sounding news, as if hoping for that coveted trip to the emergency room that she had been pushing for the last month and a half.

Carlos shook his head solemnly at this and paused, clearing his throat as though preparing to proclaim her certain doom. This only fueled the fire in Mrs. Arden's desirous eyes, and she leaned forward in her wheelchair, impatient to learn of her fate.

"You have...hypochondri-itis," he stated, being economical with the truth while inventing a disease that derived from the medical term for a patient with imaginary symptoms and ailments.

Doc stifled a laugh at Carols' distorted terminology and grave delivery of the 'horrid' news, and stood to leave, grabbing up one of the heavy meds bags.

"How bad?" she wanted to know, her hand now at her throat.

"Oh, well...it's pretty advanced... But I'll tell you what," Carlos offered, "if you drink plenty of fluids and don't have a whole lot of excitement in the next few weeks, you should be perfectly fine. And that includes calling us, 'cause I know all of this," he gestured to himself and Doc, "is kind of stressful, huh?"

She knit her brow at the recommendation, not entirely satisfied with the prospect of not seeing her favorite medics for the next fortnight, but then nodded and relented, using the information to align with her 'distressed' physical condition.

"Yes, I suppose that all of this excitement isn't too good for my heart... I should take it easy..." she agreed, now in good spirits due to her newfound malady.

"You do that, ma'am," Doc approved and stared for the door. "Keep healthy, now. I don't want to have to see you for quite a while."

With one more exaggerated sigh, Mrs. Arden acquiesced and gave a weak farewell wave of her hand.

Carlos nearly skipped out the door, letting his face spilt into an infectious grin as he and Doc made their way to the elevator that decorated the anteroom outside.

"Oh my God, that was great! Did you see her face? It was like she couldn't believe that we actually found something 'wrong' with her!" he laughed gleefully.

"I don't really like doing that," Doc sighed. "You know, lying to her and all."

"What?! Oh, com'on, man -- you know her...she's as healthy as a horse! I don't know about you, but I'm sick of being her personal 'nurse-boy' or whatever."

"She's just lonely, I guess..."

"And annoying," Carlos prompted. "And an incurable hypochondriac. And a waste of our time and the city's money. I just got her off our backs for like, two whole weeks! Don't tell me you aren't just a little bit happy about that..."

Realizing that in that case, Carlos had done what needed to be done -- maybe not in the most sagacious way, but he had indeed paid everyone a favor by ending her tomfoolery for a time. Although he liked to stick to the books and be fair, treat every patient with the same respect and courtesy, Doc knew that he couldn't, and wouldn't, be able to be perfectly evenhanded. Besides, her face was...priceless.

Shaking his head, he found himself smirking back at his puckish partner. "Hypochondri-itis, huh?"


"Here we go," Bosco pronounced as he stopped before a large mound of rags and trash clustered up against the graffiti spattered wall.

Kirk, aka 'K-smooth', had been unceremoniously dropped of at the 'bad-boy day care' just over a half hour before, along with Davis' detainee. The unlikely pair of cops had received another impressed glance from Swersky as he noted the amount of criminal activity they had managed to shut down in a few hours, sending them both into a good mood.

Now the duo tromped through a derelict alley that was icy from recent condensation and completely trashed from downright neglect. Rats scurried away at their footsteps, scattering into shadows amongst the soggy boxes and rotted wood.

The 'victim' that held their attention was slumped up against the wall, tilting precariously to the right as if he'd fall over at any second. Hoarfrost covered his middle-aged face, clumping on his rough beard and eyebrows and sealing his eyes shut with a fine layer of rime. His mouth hung slightly ajar, the moisture that had previously occupied the orifice frozen solid as a white crust. It was apparent that the man had died quite a while ago, and nature had done its part in embalming his body to preserve it almost perfectly.

His face was what captured Bosco's attention though, and he stared at the frozen man for a long moment before recognizing him. "Hey, this's the guy that keeps robbin' the convenience stores around here... I've been tryin' to bag him for like a month!"

"He's got to be the whitest white guy I've ever seen," Ty stated, his churlish remark referring to the even layer of white frost that covered the man, causing his skin to blanch strikingly. "I mean, even you pale compared to him, Bos," he wisecracked.

Bosco grimaced at the terrible play on words and shook his head, "Oh, ha ha -- funny..."

"You think he's dead?" Ty posed wryly, nodding deprecatingly at the ice-covered heap of bum.

The alleyway was silent for a moment as Bosco squatted down next to the body and gently poked a petrified shoulder with the end of his nightstick. The man's form was so stiff and frozen that it yielded nothing, not moving or shifting in the least bit. Bosco frowned slightly, shaking his head at the misfortune of the poor guy.

"Uh...yeah. That's an understatement."

"Looks like he just fell asleep, huh?" Ty wondered aloud, noting the curled-up position of the body and the blanket that wrapped the man's lower half. The expression on the corpse was peaceful, showing no signs of a painful death.

"Yep, happens every year. They just fall asleep and never wake up. Awake one minute, pushin' up daisies the next."

The soft hiss of brakes being applied turned their heads to the lane at the end of the alley, heralding the arrival of the paramedics. In an apparent and ridiculously pointless haste, Kim and Bobby hopped out of their ambulance and trotted quickly over, bearing a hodge-podge of miscellaneous medical baggage.

"What you got, guys?" Kim asked as they drew near, unaware of the deceased's current state, her learned gaze never leaving the crumpled heap at Bosco's feet.

"He bought the farm. Frozen solid," Ty stated simply, as there was no really other way to put it.

"Just takin' a dirt nap," Bosco chimed in, adding his own cliché to Ty's and making light of the situation, "after he cashed in his chips and kicked the bucket."

Bobby chuckled and shook his head, smiling brightly at their engaging wordplay as he dropped down beside the still form. "Aww, com'on..." he quipped right back, his deep, intense eyes twinkling with mirth. "He's not dead...he's electroencephalographically challenged..."

"Alright, boys, knock it off," Kim admonished her chortling coworkers, taking charge of the situation as she performed an unnecessary examination of the clearly perished bum. "You have any idea who this is? Any ID?"

"Nah," Bosco shook his head, "but he's from around here. Likes to rob the 7-11's late at night -- slipped though our fingers a few times. Far's I know, he's a wanted bum."

"Oh, okay. Well, we'll take it from here then, guys," Kim nodded at the pair of officers, gesturing to the cadaver with her gloved hand. "I don't think he's going to give us any trouble."

Bobby quirked his brow at Kim's offhandedly humorous remark and widened his eyes in mock fear. "He'd better not..."

"Later," Bosco held up a hand in a half-wave, turning back down the alley the way they came.

"Never got caught, huh?" Ty retorted to Bosco as they walked towards their RMP, stuffing his hands casually in his coat pockets, and trying fastidiously to stifle a smirking grin. "What should I write on the report then...? 'Vanilla Ice beats the rap'?"


To Be Continued... Write me up what you think and make my day! I love getting feedback! :)